


Untouchable

by selindamon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Battle, Dark Draco Malfoy, Dark Hermione Granger, Dark Magic, Death Eater Draco Malfoy, Eventual Romance, Ex-Death Eater Draco Malfoy, F/M, Mystery, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Hermione Granger, Slow Build, Slow Burn, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-26 07:47:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30102639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selindamon/pseuds/selindamon
Summary: War era. Voldemort unleashes a virus to weaken the resistance and Hermione and Draco are among the ones who are affected by it. If they touch each other one of them dies.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Blaise Zabini
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

  
  


Hermione was growing impatient waiting for the day she wouldn't have to wear a nasal cannula anymore.

She despised it ever since she started using it. The thing that bothered her wasn't a matter of how uncomfortable it was having tubes dangling from up her nose, or about not liking the look in people's eyes when they saw the cannula. 

It was rather the fact that she didn't want to be ill and need oxygen in the first place. She hated not being in control of her own life and having to depend on a set of tubes. 

She would stop wearing the cannula from time to time and countdown how many minutes she could go on without air. At first, she could barely go on for more than thirty seconds but, with time she trained her lungs to be able to survive up to three minutes without air. Obviously she didn't start doing this little exercise of hers without a bit of research first. She didn't want to risk anything that could be irreversible. 

After a ton of extensive research and going through over thirty different books—just to be sure—that pretty much said the same thing, she concluded that permanent brain damage began after four minutes without oxygen and death occurred as soon as six minutes had gone by. So she wasn't going to push her limits above three minutes, to be safe.

She waited impatiently the whole day to feel the way she felt when she didn't have the cannula on. 

She felt free. 

She felt in control. 

Those three minutes of freedom, were the highlight of her day. 

She only did it past midnight, since it was the only time there weren't nurses coming to her room to do the daily checkups for her lungs and arm. Her checkups were always done at random times and she never knew when a nurse would stumble into her room.

She wished she had a timetable of some sort, so that she knew exactly when her checkups would be done. But, the facility didn't provide her with one and the nurses came in different hours every day. The only thing that was slightly consistent was the amount of times a day the nurses came by. It usually ranged from four to six times.

There were moments where she got extremely tempted to practice her exercise during the day, thinking that a nurse wouldn't randomly show up to check on her, but she was wrong. 

She attempted twice and she was nearly caught in both of them. She didn't want to push it further and actually get caught and end up like the other patients in the facility. 

Every patient that attempted to remove their cannulas, in frustration, ended up in a locked room where they couldn't go out for their daily walks and had dinner delivered to their room. They just had a bed in the room and that's it, nothing more. They weren't even allowed to have books or a copy of the Daily Prophet. The only thing they could do was just stare at a blank wall and reflect upon their stupidity. 

The rooms didn't even have windows, to have a bit of fresh air, it was sort of a prison when she thought about it. She knew all this because Ginny had been to one of those rooms for nearly ten days once and had told her about how dreadful of an experience it was.

Hermione's still surprised how Ginny had managed to not lose her mind in a place as horrific as that. She couldn't even imagine staring at a wall for ten whole days and not doing anything. 

It wasn't in her nature. 

She doubts she even knows the definition of the word 'nothing'. She was sure though that she would've still found something to do. Anything... Like measuring the width and length of the walls and counting the number of tiles that were located on the floor. Or calculating the internal angle of each side of her shirt, then hoodie, pyjama bottoms...

But still, she'd rather just not remove her cannula during the day and wait patiently for midnight to come along. 

However when it came to her right arm, she couldn't do anything. She had no way out. No freedom. The virus had made her lose her whole ability to use her arm, hand alongside her fingers. She had to learn how to write with her left hand, since she was right handed before she came in contact with the virus.

The virus primarily affected the patient's lungs and resulted in a random part of your body to stop functioning completely. Luna had trouble walking because her lower leg had stopped working and Ginny lost her hearing in her left ear, which made Hermione slightly envious. She would've given anything for her disability to be something as trifling as not hearing from an ear. 

She wasn't surprised though, considering her terrible luck. Of course she had to end up with one of the rather worst disabilities among the others that caused her to completely switch how she did things before. 

But who is she to judge when there were people among the facility that had it much worse than her. Some were paralyzed and couldn't even move an inch of their body and laid down on their bed for the whole day. It must be terrible to have people assist you while you had to use the bathroom she thought to herself. 

She had to learn how to perform her basic daily tasks with her other hand and it hasn't been easy for her. She still faces some difficulties that she hasn't been able to master yet, which frustrated her immensely. Such as: tying her hair up in a ponytail, unclasping her bra from behind, tying her shoelaces, massaging her skull while she shampooed her hair and not being able to use cutlery properly.

She abhorred being incapable of cutting her own steak by herself. It was impossible to cut steak without the support of a fork. She always had to ask Ginny to cut it into slices for her and it made her feel guilty. Hermione knew that Ginny didn't mind but still she couldn't help herself from feeling the way she felt.

She wasn't used to the need of depending on someone else to do something for her. Before she caught the virus, she always did everything by herself. She didn't require anyone for anything. 

She liked being independent and people coming to her for help instead, not the other way around. 

Hermione felt unproductive and her existence being useless. She felt like she had not really lived these last four months but rather existed. She had nothing awaiting her to complete for the next day. Everyday was pretty much the same. 

She would wake up on her back, which she hated as well, since before having problems breathing she would always sleep on her stomach. But, now her nasal cannula hurt her philtrum when it was pressed against her pillow and she would crush it under her body, which decreased the oxygen flow tremendously. 

So basically in order to not pass away while she was asleep due to having no oxygen, she had to sleep on top of her back. It took her a couple of weeks to permanently adjust to her new sleeping position. 

Then she would have breakfast delivered to her door at ten AM. Breakfast was always the same, cold and unappetizing. It was either hard boiled eggs with a slice of toast, porridge with blueberry yoghurt beside it, or cereal with raisins in it. If there was one thing Hermione couldn't ever come to eat, it was raisins. 

She despised them ever since her muggle parents had forced her to try it on her fifth birthday. She always left her plate untouched when it was cereal day, there was no point in eating it because on top of the raisins she was lactose intolerant. 

She had filed a complaint about there not being a variety of different types of milks but, no one did anything about it. They basically had said "take it or leave it".

After breakfast she would catch up on what had been going on with the war, by reading the Daily Prophet. Mainly to see if either Harry and Ron were still alive since they had gone on their mission to hunt horcruxes. 

Each passing month, they would send her very brief letters, reassuring her that they were fine and most importantly alive. They would only write a handful of words and drew a small phoenix on the bottom of each letter instead of writing their initials. To ensure that they wouldn't be detected, if the letter stumbled upon the wrong hands.

After catching up on the news, she would go on her daily hour long walk. She was prohibited doing any type of extensive workout because of the condition of her lungs. Even if she tried to do somewhat of a hiit workout she was gasping for air barely after five minutes. 

Due to her lack of activity she put on some weight, which she wasn't really fond of. Every time she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she didn't like what she saw. She tried standing in different positions in front of the mirror to look skinny and suck in her stomach, but it didn't change anything.

She had gained some weight and there was no way of hiding it. It wasn't much though. It couldn't have been more than seven pounds, but in her eyes it was as if she gained sixty.

Having a dysfunctional arm and going through weight gain, really affected her mental health, even if she tried to stay strong about it. It would keep her up at night and having to sleep on her back wasn't really helping with the situation. 

Following her tedious walk, she would typically hang out with Ginny and even Luna sometimes and eat lunch with both or either of them. Having them by her side, made her feel less alone in what she was going through. 

She would read whatever she had access to the remaining of the day. It was frustrating for her, because there weren't as many books in her reach as she was accustomed to have back in Hogwarts. The treatment center didn't have an extravagant library like Hogwarts did.

There was only a singular cabinet in the common area that had thirty two books, Hermione had counted, in her possession and she had already read twenty five of them. 

She tried reading them at a slower pace, but it was physically impossible for her. She was used to reading at least four books a week. So she was going against her human nature by limiting herself to read only two a week. 

However the only good thing that she was thankful for was the random selection of books Molly Weasley would send her every now and then. She would typically send around six to eighth books a month, which was more than she could ever ask for. 

Above all though, the thing that she hated the most was how things were before. She terribly missed Hogwarts and her normal school routine. She missed the familiar scent of Mahogany Apples and Autumn Woods that surrounded every inch of Hogwarts. A scent she would call home every time she inhaled it. She missed Ron's stupid jokes and Harry's sarcastic comments and all of their endless adventures. She missed going up to the Astronomy Tower late at night, when she needed a break from overthinking about the randomest things. She missed the sight of people without nasal cannulas. The only people that didn't wear them were the nurses. 

Everyone except them carried the tubes with them everywhere they went and she was sick of having this constant reminder of not being able to breathe everywhere she looked. 

It made her feel weak.

She was rudely interrupted by her thoughts when a nurse had entered her room, while she was having breakfast, to do the first checkup of the day.

"Good morning" said the nurse as she casted a complex diagnostic for spirometry, which measured the rate of air flow and estimated her lung size. Then she proceeded to cast a different diagnostic to check the oxygen levels in her blood. Last but not least she cast an arterial blood gas diagnostic to measure the levels of gasses, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, in her blood. 

"Everything looks normal. I'll come by in a few hours time" she spun on her heel and left. Hermione took a bite of her slightly burnt slice of toast that she had spread with jam, clutched the Daily Prophet in her hand and went outside for a walk.

There was nothing new that had happened today. The journalists of the Daily Prophet were basically rewriting the same thing in different fonts for the past two weeks. They wrote about the attacks that had been committed against muggles by the Dark Lord's loyal death eaters and they updated the number of people that were affected by the virus.

As Hermione was skimming through the thin pages of the Prophet she caught sight of Ginny who was balling her eyes out under an oak tree. She quickly neared her but not too much "What happened Gin? Are you okay?" Hermione asked in a worried tone. 

The redhead witch wiped her tears with the back of her hand. "I just miss them so much," she said as she inhaled and exhaled slowly. It was hard to cry when you couldn't breathe—literally. Hermione gave her an empathetic look "I know" she said gently.

Both Fred and George had died but for completely different reasons. Fred was killed whilst duelling with a death eater and George had commited suicide a month later. He couldn't imagine a life where he wouldn't have his brother beside him at all times. 

George had asked, in his final letter, to mingle their ashes and bury them together. They were inseparable, even in death.

Hermione tried to empathize with his reasons, but she wished that he had considered how it would affect the rest of his family. Ginny was devastated when it had happened, she didn't speak to anyone for days on end. As for Ron, he nearly gave up on his mission with Harry. 

Hermione wanted to comfort her best friend but she couldn't. 

She couldn't touch her. 

If she did one of them would die. Like Neville had when he tried to hug Hannah.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione did her night time exercise and was proud of herself, because she had managed to survive without air for three minutes and thirteen seconds this time.

Even though thirteen seconds seemed like a short amount of time, it felt like a century to her. But, she felt bad afterwards and it took her more than half an hour to regulate her breathing. 

While she recovered she thought of Ginny and how it must have felt like to lose a brother or someone she cared about deeply. She was thankful that no one close to her had died—yet. 

Apart from the twins and Neville of course.. However, she didn’t really see them as her friends but rather acquaintances, even though she had spent a considerable amount of time with them. 

Neville was always awkward around her after she had rejected him in second year. Their personalities didn’t really match. 

They weren’t each other's yings and yangs. 

They were very different. Neville was always this introverted, clumsy, nice guy with a low self-confidence and Hermione was this level headed, brilliant, stubborn girl. 

They wouldn’t work, because Hermione needed someone that would challenge her in every way she could possibly imagine and Neville wasn’t capable of doing that. 

Hermione needed tension, passion and mystery. The only thing Neville was passionate about were his plants. Or at least the only thing she knew of. She didn’t feel tension arise when she spoke to him or when they were at a close distance from each other. 

She didn’t feel nervous or overwhelmed when she talked to him. She felt nothing, as if she were talking to a bland wall. She didn’t feel her heart rate rise up along with her blood pressure, they stayed at their normal rate, as if she were at rest.

She didn’t need to overthink every bit of their conversations afterwards, at night, in the Astronomy Tower. They made small talk and there was nothing more to it. She didn’t try to put the effort of using the correct words to formulate what was inhabiting her mind. She didn’t care if she made sense to him or not. His opinion wasn’t something she valued, if she were to be honest with herself.

Neville wasn’t an enigma she had to solve. He was an open book that she could read through with ease. He didn’t have a riddle to him. It was like all the puzzle pieces that made his personality were already attached together. She didn’t have to patiently find their destined places. 

When it came to Fred and George, she always saw them as a simple comedic relief but nothing more. She doesn’t even recall a time where she had a genuine conversation with either of them. 

On rare occasions she would comment on their stories about the numerous pranks they would pull at Hogwarts while sitting around at the Weasley’s dinner table. That was the most amount of conversation she had going on between them. 

They always were in that little world of theirs that they had created and mostly did their own thing. In her defense, she did try to get close to them in the summer before fourth year but they kind of made her feel left out. She didn’t really feel welcome when she was left alone with them. 

She didn’t understand the secretive communication they had going on between them and got frustrated while trying to. But, she knew that the way they treated her wasn’t specifically directed towards her. They treated everyone the same. They didn’t allow anyone to be a part of their bubble except them. 

The one thing that she didn’t overthink about at night were her parents. She didn’t have to worry about if they were alive or not. When Voldemort had unleashed the first dosage of the virus she immediately obliviated her parents and send them to Australia. A place she knew the virus was most unlikely to reach. Plus she didn’t want them to be in England when there was a war going on. 

Performing the memory charm on her parents took a significant amount of consideration on her part. Since the charm’s effects would be permanent after five years and she didn’t know when the war was going to come to an end. Or if it was even going to end in the near future.. 

Maybe it would last over two thousand years, like the Punic wars, which Hermione recalled learning in her muggle primary school. Or maybe Harry and Ron wouldn’t manage to find the rest of the horcruxes and Voldemort would win. Which meant she would never be able to see her parents again, if she couldn’t manage to flee from Britain. 

The point is that she hoped that the resistance would win and that the war would end before the memory charm would be irreversible.

She caught the virus right after she had come back from settling down her parents in Australia. Which frustrated her immensely since she couldn’t continue hunting horcruxes with Harry and Ron. She had only helped them find two of them, which were Salazar Slytherin's Locket and Helga Hufflepuff's Cup. 

She felt bad for leaving them halfway, but there was nothing she could do about it, even if she tried.

Which she did. She begged Harry and Ron to let her continue their mission with them, but they didn’t allow her to. She tried convincing them that she would be fine going everywhere with them with a set of failing lungs and would be able to run from snatchers with ease while carrying her portable oxygen container with her at all times, even though she didn’t believe it herself. She had tried putting the oxygen container in her beaded bag that she cast an Undetectable Extension Charm on but, turns out the only thing she couldn't compress was oxygen. 

She never thought that she would catch the virus, since the first dosage barely affected a thousand people. But, when the resistance refused to back down and surrender, Voldemort released a higher dosage that affected more than forty thousand of the British population. 

Among them the ones that got affected by it, that were Hogwarts alumni were Hermione, Ginny, Theodore, Luna and Blaise. 

Hermione was surprised when she saw Blaise and Theodore arrive at the treatment center. At first when she saw them, she thought they were going to blow up the place or curse everyone until they died from excruciating pain. Or not even bother and just commit instant mass murder. She was convinced they were loyal death eaters to the Dark Lord, along with Malfoy. 

Whenever she saw them around her eyes darted immediately to their forearm to see if they had the mark. Even though there was nothing there, she would still stubbornly check when they would wear a sleeveless shirt. 

However one thing that she enjoyed with being in the same facility with them was that now they were all on the same boat. They had always made her feel inferior due to her blood and for not being as wealthy as them when they were kids. 

But, now blood and wealth didn’t matter, because the only cure was in Voldemort's hands. Nothing they would do would make their lungs work properly. 

Blaise couldn’t do anything to stop his one eye from going blind and Theo his left arm from working. 

That last thought made a slight smile form on her lips as she doze off to sleep on her uncomfortable position and bed. 

The next morning was cereal day, so she left her tray right where it was placed on the floor and went outside. She wasn’t feeling like walking around so she sat on one of the seats in the courtyard. 

There weren’t that many people outside since it was only nine in the morning and the other patients usually started populating the courtyard after lunch time, which was usually held from twelve to one in the afternoon. 

She read the Daily Prophet and finally there was some actual news. In the front page was written in capital letters and in bold ‘THE DARK LORD ATTEMPTS A COUP IN NORTHERN FRANCE’. 

Why would Voldemort attempt a coup when he was still fighting a battle in Britain she thought to herself. It didn’t make sense. Why start something new when you haven't finished the previous one yet. Was Voldemort’s Army already so grand that he could manage to have death eaters in two separate countries?

She glanced up as she saw Luna approaching her table from the corner of her eye.

“Hey Hermione,” said the blonde witch as she took a seat in front of her. She was wearing a pastel blue cardigan over a simple black shirt and a polka dot patterned skirt underneath. Something Hermione would never pair up together with their opposite sense of clothing styles. 

Luna always wore bright colors and always looked as if she had her life together. Whenever she looked at her, the words ‘bright’, ‘cheerful’ and ‘hopeful’ striked her eyes. 

Hermione wished she could say the same for herself. She barely cared about her appearance anymore and what she wore. 

Not that she had anyone in particular to impress at the moment. Not that anyone would even be impressed, since the final touch of the nasal cannula ruined whatever she tried to wear. 

Even though she tried wearing clothes that made her feel sexy every once in a while the only thing she saw when she looked at herself in front of a mirror was ‘sick’ and ‘disabled’.

Those were the words she would describe herself as.

Sick and Disabled.

“Hey Luna” Hermione responded as she folded the Daily Prophet. 

“Isn’t the sound of the birds chirping beautiful today?” Luna said after a short-lived pause between them. 

Hermione hadn’t even noticed the sound, “Yeah..” she forced a half smile on her expression. 

She was sure that Luna would point out some random thing that was unimportant to her. Hermione wondered how Luna could manage to not be depressed by the current situation. It was as if she didn’t have a set of dysfunctional lungs. As if she could breathe better than anyone in the world.

“I think the milk they served us this morning might have been expired.. It tasted rather.. odd” Luna remarked.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven't tasted the milk since the first time they had served it” Hermione said as she played with the tip of the Daily Prophet.

“Why not?” Luna asked looking around mindlessly like she always did.

“I’m lactose intolerant. I requested for a broader selection of milk but they didn’t do anything about it” she said as a leaf that fell onto the table caught her eye. 

“Oh.. Yeah that makes sense” she replied as she flipped out a brush from her satchel and started combing her hair gently. 

Hermione wondered how long it’s been since she had brushed her hair. It was like a birds nest and it felt like torture brushing down all the knots that had formed in it. All her efforts would go to waste since after going through that tremendous amount of pain it would take less than half a day until the knots would start forming again.

She was interrupted from her thoughts when something far away in the distance demanded her attention. 

Someone was walking towards her while holding onto a crutch. Someone that looked very familiar but she couldn’t tell who for sure. As the person came closer, Hermione’s vision became clearer and she knew exactly who it was. She could recognize that platinum blonde hair anyday. 

Even though he had to use a crutch to walk properly, she could see that he was still trying his hardest to saunter like he used to. There was always something particularly unique in the way he walked. The way he could make the action look so effortless as he moved like a gliding jaguar. 

He had grown taller since her last memory of him, when he watched her, emotionless, in the corner of the spacious hall of the Malfoy Manor whilst she was getting tortured by his aunt. 

That memory of her laying down on the cold, numbing floor, haunted her each time she glanced over at her scar. 

Mudblood.

He was the first person to ever address her for what she truly was.

A Mudblood. 

She didn’t even realize that he was practically ten feet away from her now. How had he neared her so fast already? How had she missed the distinct sound that his crutch made when it pressed on the ground with each step he took?

His eyes were like endless caves, dark and cold. The deadliness in them was striking. 

“Granger” he sneered as he walked right past.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

His features had become more defined, but his facial expressions hadn’t changed the slightest bit. The way his face would form into a disdainful grimace, when he would address her by her last name. How his nose wrinkled and upper lip curled up remained exactly how she remembered it.

The disgust in his icy blue eyes was clearer than a newly wiped glass frame. Same as the first time they had laid eyes on each other.

His hate towards her had begun before he even spoke to her. She always wondered why that was at the beginning. She hadn’t done anything bad towards him. Nor to anyone. But quickly understood why, when he called her a word that was foreign to her ears.

A word that didn’t bother her before, but quickly became an insecurity. It was the sort of insecurity that would only ever grow upon you when someone would unintentionally—well in this case intentionally point out. An insecurity that would haunt you forever, unless you decided to disregard it.

She had never associated the word Mudblood with herself, before she heard him say it. She would never use the Word in the same sentence her name was in.

Why was he here?

Wasn’t he a death eater?

Had Voldemort found the secret treatment center?

Was he going to blow it up?

Was he going to kill everyone?

Hermione felt her head throb with the millions of unanswered questions that were ricocheting around her skull. Her eyes immediately darted towards his forearm, to see if the mark she had once seen on the icy floors of the Malfoy Manor was still there. She couldn’t. Her view was blocked by the long sleeve shirt he wore.

She turned around and watched him walk slowly until he neared the front door of the facility. Hermione shifted her gaze back to Luna to see if she was experiencing the same range of emotions as her, but to her surprise she wasn’t. She looked calm and collected.

“Luna are you blind?” Hermione snapped.

“No... but I might be soon. Turning blind does run in the family... My grandfather became blind when he was 36,” she responded as she started putting her hair into a french braid.

“Luna I didn't ask literally..” she sighed “Malfoy just passed by us and you’re acting like if it were nothing...” Hermione was growing frustrated at Luna’s odd reaction, “as if you weren’t imprisoned in the dungeons of his own house for months...” If it were Ginny, she would’ve probably jumped out of her seat and attacked him.

“I know... But, that was in the past and—I’d rather not ruin my mood and this beautiful day rethinking about it” she admitted. How could it not ruin her mood? How could someone even come to enjoy the beauty of nature where there was a virus and war going on on top of it?

It wouldn’t take much time before her mind would predetermine how her day and mood would look like for the remainder of the day. It was always the same.

Sad and depressive.

She tried to fight her mind into not feeling that way, but she couldn’t. It was just the way it was and sometimes she didn’t even know why she would wake up sad in the first place.

The second her gaze would shift down to face her arm and felt the tubes of her nasal cannula, that was it. Her mood for the day was set. Depressed and sad and even suicidal some days. She didn’t feel suicidal most days, but the thoughts of it would pay a visit to her mind every now and then.

“I get where you’re coming from, but still he might be here to—blow up the place” Hermione responded as she glanced back at the words ‘DEATH EATER’ that were written on the headline of the Prophet.

“I don’t really think so.” sighed Luna as she was nearly done braiding her hair “Didn’t you see the condition he was in? He couldn’t even walk properly..He had a crutch just like mine” she glanced at her crutch that was placed flat down next to her on top of the bench.

Hermione half listened to Luna as the way he said “Granger” played over and over in her head.

“Don’t blame me for being suspicious about it...” she said after a moment.

“I’m not blaming you—I just don’t think he would walk with a crutch and wear a nasal cannula if he were to blow up the place. It doesn’t make—sense” Luna said with a high pitched tone as Hermione watched Ginny near their table, with a cup of water in her hand.

“You’re up early” remarked Luna whilst Ginny took a seat at the other end on the bench the latter was sitting at.

“Yeah, the nurse decided to drop by early this morning” Ginny said as she slid the Prophet into her hand and started reading.

Hermione interrupted her before she could even finish reading the headline “Malfoy’s here”

Ginny’s head shot back up to face her “What?”

“He walked right past us just now. Two minutes before you arrived” she said.

“What? Are we talking about Malfoy as in—Draco Malfoy”

“Well I don’t think there’s another Draco Malfoy that exists that I’m unaware of” Hermione scoffed.

“What is he doing here?” Ginny asked with wide eyes.

“He’s like us,” Luna answered.

“Like us? What do you mean?” she paused, “Does he have the virus too?”

Before Hermione could answer Ginny cut her off with more questions that neither of them knew the answer to “Malfoy switched sides?”

“Ginny I don’t know...” sighed Hermione, “We just saw him walk by with a crutch and he also had the cannula on. So yeah I’m assuming he has the virus too but, how is the real question...” said Hermione. She could tell Ginny was as irritated as she was.

Ginny stayed silent for a moment. “I would’ve never thought Malfoy would have the guts to switch sides” she admitted.

“Me neither” agreed Hermione, “but I don’t think we should assume things right away.. We don’t know how he ended up here. The only thing we know is that he got the virus too.”

“Yeah I guess you’re right” sighed Ginny.

There was a long pause among the witches.

“Miss. Lovegood you’re requested at your chambers for your daily checkups” called a nurse from behind Hermione.

“Coming” said Luna as she grabbed her crutch and oxygen container and started walking slowly towards the nurse.

“I don’t get her optimism sometimes...” said Hermione as soon as the sound of the blonde witch’s footsteps disappeared.

“What do you mean?” Ginny asked.

“Well,” Hermione’s voice trailed off, “It’s just that Draco was the cause of so many of her own sorrows so I don’t really understand how she could be so calm about it... As if it were a stranger. As if he didn’t watch from the sidelines when she was held captive for months.”

Ginny stayed silent for a moment,“I mean I guess you’re right... But, I’m surprised because you’re so worked up about it. Luna has always been—exceptional. It’s not something new” she shrugged, “It kind of feels like you’re taking your frustration out of Luna, because she didn’t react the way you wanted her to”

“The way I wanted her to? No.” she snapped, “This isn't about me. I just don’t think it makes sense”

“Nothing makes sense right now Hermione. I mean look at us.. If someone told me six months ago that I would go around with a cannula because I wouldn’t be able to breathe and not be able to properly hear half of the conversations I’m having at seventeen due to a virus.. I wouldn’t have believed it” she scowled “I don’t think neither of us would have believed it” Ginny said as she took a sip of her water.

Hermione parted her lips and was ready to say something, when suddenly Ginny wasn’t breathing. She felt the water she was attempting to drink infiltrate her airways. It was almost like her throat was closing up and her lungs were spasming.

She was gasping for air and Hermione rapidly jumped out of her seat. Her hand was inches away and was about to pat her back when she remembered that she couldn’t.

  
She couldn’t touch her.

She immediately took two steps back and maintained a distance between them.

“Nurse” Ginny wheezed and Hermione started running towards the entrance of the facility. Ginny was practically gasping for air while she tried to find a nurse to help her.

There was no one at the front desk and she started panicking as she quickly ran up to the second floor. Her eyes grew wide when she saw a nurse entering a patient’s room.

“Help!” she yelled and the nurse froze. She looked up at Hermione who was panting uncontrollably, “Help! Ginny’s choking!”

“Where is she?” she asked as she sped up towards where Hermione stood.

“Outside!” she started leading the way, “In the courtyard”

Ginny was laying in unconscious on the ground and wasn’t wearing her cannula anymore, when they arrived. With a flick of her wand the nurse quickly put her cannula back on and placed her upright in a sitting position.

She then proceeded to stand behind her and support her chest with one hand. She leaned her forward so the water blocking her airway would come out of her mouth, rather than moving further down.

She gave up five short blows between her shoulder blades with the heel of her hand but Ginny still remained the same.

Lifeless.

So the nurse continued further by giving her abdominal thrusts. She placed her arms around her petite waist and bent her forward. She clenched her right fist and placed it right above her belly button and put Ginny's other hand on top of hers and pulled sharply inwards then upwards a couple of times.

After a minute of doing the same movement the water that had infiltrated her airways came out of her mouth and she started coughing.

Hermione didn’t even realize that she hadn’t been breathing the whole time.

She despised the Dark Lord even more with what just happened.. Since, the worst part about the virus was that the ones that were affected by it couldn’t touch each other. If they did, then one of them would die.

Her friend could’ve died and the only thing she could do was watch, which made her feel even more useless than she already did. That was what she was thinking when she ended up in her room, a couple hours later, and tried to distract herself how she usually would. By reading a book.

It would work ninety percent of the time, but now it didn’t. The same image of Ginny played in her mind over and over again. The way she stood there on the ground, immobile, without a hint of life in her eyes.

It frightened her. For a second she thought, while she watched the nurse perform abdominal thrusts, that her worst fear would finally come to light. That this would be the day she lost someone that she cared for deeply. That she would lose one of her best friends that had always remained by her side no matter what.

The mere thought of it made a tear form in the corner of her eye. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand. She had to distract herself. She had to do something. Since she couldn’t practice her exercise she decided to go to the common room and pick up a new book from the cupboard.

There were less books present than usual. She had just recounted them yesterday and there were 32, now there were barely 20 left. She looked around to see if other patients had taken and left them without putting them back in their place, when she saw him.

He was observing her as he held a book in the palm of his hands. The book that she was intending on reading next. Her eyes glanced further down and saw the pile of books that were stacked up against each other, sitting on the coffee table in front of him. Of course it had to be him.

“Looking for these” he said and she could hear his deep voice vibrate out of his chest.

She rolled her eyes and started walking towards him. It felt odd seeing him wear a cannula she thought to herself.

“Yes.. There are other patients here so you could try not taking ten books at a time” she said as she started picking up the books one by one.

“Lecturing me now Granger?” he asked stiffly as he snapped his book shut.

“I’m not lecturing you,” she sighed “I’m just saying that this isn’t Hogwarts and we have scarce resources so try to limit yourself with one book at a time” she snapped.

“Or you could stop from putting your filthy little nose in other people's business and stop telling me what I can or can’t do. I don’t see any set of rules that specifically indicate how many books I can take when I please, not that I would obey them” he replied.

“I don’t care what you do or not, I’m just saying that the world doesn’t revolve around you and there are others who like to read as well. So you could stop being so selfish about it” Hermione felt her frustration grow upon her.

He didn’t say anything and rose up from his seat. He stretched out his arm to grab her by her wrist to stop her from taking the rest of the books. Before he could, Hermione quickly withdrew her hand and rapidly took a step back.

“Are you out of your mind?!” she yelled, with wide eyes. She felt her chest tighten from the shock she was experiencing. The same thing nearly happened for a second time today, and she couldn’t handle it. Her breathing patterns started to irregulate again.

“It was the only way to shut you up” he said as kept his features trained and stern.

“One of us could have just died!” Her tone was getting higher, “This isn’t a joke! Don't you get how serious this is!”

“I’d rather die than listen to another word that comes out of your Mudblood mouth” he admitted as he sat back on the couch. There it was.. that word again..

Hermione felt the urge to punch him right in the face, like she had in third year. Before she let her rage heighten even more, she spun on her heel and went back to her room.

Was her voice that horrendous that he would rather risk both of their lives than listen to it?


End file.
